


when i entered the house of dust

by arianne-of-porne (allnuthatchforest)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Gay Relationship, Love, M/M, Memory Loss, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allnuthatchforest/pseuds/arianne-of-porne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a strange man offers to give Renly back his life, Loras learns that magic has its price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when i entered the house of dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlytookish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlytookish/gifts).



> Written for got_exchange at lj (originally posted as "the devil has made his round"). Title from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

He doesn't know.

If his mind could form words, those would be the ones it would repeat, like a prayer from hell. He doesn't know. He doesn't know why his hands and chest are covered with brown, crusting blood. He doesn't know how he ended up here, climbing the rocks into a thickening wood, on a horse that isn't his. He doesn't know when the sun rose over Storm's End, or what time it is, or where he ought to be, or if anyone is looking for him.

He doesn't know how he found the strength to get his king's body onto the back of the stranger's horse. And he doesn't know where he is finding the strength now, to pull a body heavy with death off the horse and onto the ground without letting the beloved face touch dirt. 

Loras rolls Renly over onto his back. His bleary eyes lie to him at first, say that Renly could be sleeping, but Loras knows the signs of death. His skin is sallow; his eyes are sunken. His fingertips have already begun to turn dark. Loras has brought Renly here, to this clearing in the wood where they first made love, and he doesn't know why; a half-formed idea says he plans to bury him here, now, but Loras has no spade and no shovel and the body hasn't been consecrated by the Silent Sisters or blessed by a septon. 

He traces Renly's thick dark eyebrows, the bold straight bridge of his nose; he strokes Renly's hair gingerly as if it could break at any moment. As if all of Renly could crumble into the lightest dust and be taken by the air.

He almost doesn't notice the sound of leaves breaking, of footsteps; it simply feels like another detour the nightmare is taking. 

"Ser Loras?" says a timid voice. Loras looks up, slowly, defiantly, daring anyone to question what he's doing.

The man who stands before him, leading a tired-looking old donkey, is vaguely familiar. He has a long face, sandy hair, green eyes; he wears a tunic the color of old blood. Loras puts his hand on the hilt of his sword and stands shakily.

"Who are you?" 

"My name is Nasso, ser," the man says, in an accent redolent of the Free Cities. He looks down at Loras's feet, at Renly's body, then back at the ground.

"You have no business here. Go." Loras tries to sound commanding, but the tears are still thick as sap in his voice.

"I only wish to help." Nasso bobs his head, in approximation of a bow, maybe.

Loras lets out a bitter laugh that hurts his throat. "Help? You think you can help?" He's grasping the hilt of his sword so tightly his hand shakes from it. "The only way you could help is by bringing your rightful king back to life. And since you can't do that, I suggest you go before I split you in half." 

Nasso faces Loras calmly and makes no move to go. He only takes the pack off of his shoulder and lowers it painfully slowly to the ground like a peace offering to one who speaks no common language. "Bringing the rightful king back to life," Nasso says, "is exactly what I plan to do."

Loras's sword comes out of its hilt with a scream of steel, and without a moment's hesitation he has its point under Nasso's throat. But it is either Nasso's strange calmness or his own exhaustion that keeps him from driving the already-bloody point through the man's gullet. 

And now he recognizes him. 

_"Ser Loras," the man had called to him a few days ago as he and Renly rode through the camp. "King Renly. Your Grace. I am a servant of the Lord of Light, and I wish to serve you as well."_

Renly had smiled at Nasso, and then turned to Loras and said, "I don't like the look of that man. Or the sound of this Lord of Light. And anyway, I outrank him, since I'm a king and he's only a lord. I don’t see what use he could be to me." Renly chuckled and rode on. "If you see him again, and if he begins making noise again, see that he's kept out of my way."

They hadn't seen him again.

"You love him," Nasso says, with the tone of a gentle maester pointing out an error in sums. "You will not stand in the way of one who wishes to restore his life to him."

"There is no place here for sorcery. I worship the true gods." But the man's words have seeped into Loras's heart, hard as he tries to flush them out. Restore his life. "And the dead cannot be brought back to life. Whatever you plan, it must be a foul trick."

Nasso shakes his head and smiles softly. "It is no trick, ser. He will be as he was."

_Restore his life. Restore his blue eyes, and strong hands, and bright clear laugh._

"As he was?" 

_His stories and his terrible singing voice. The single wavy lock in his straight hair. His fear of spiders. The riddles he left around the keep for Loras to solve._

Nasso nods. "He may forget a few things. But he will have all his wits about him. And he will be no monster. He will be a king still. My fires have foreseen it."

Loras steps back a few paces. His sword is still extended but he sees the tremble in the tip. "Your fires?" 

"The fires through which my god speaks. They show me how things are, and how things will be." As if drawing permission from his own words, Nasso crouches to open the pack. 

"Ser, if you will gather wood for a fire, please."

Loras stands agape. A minute ago he made to kill this man, and now Nasso is ordering him around. But he glances at Renly again, sees his stiffening blue fingers and his black-ringed eyes. A man who cannot, who _must_ not, be dead, and who is dead. 

With a defiant, suspicious glare, he says to Nasso, "You come too." 

As he gathers wood, Loras watches Nasso. What for, he doesn't know; he doesn't know what foul play would even look like coming from this skulking demon-worshipper who has already wormed his way past Loras's defenses with a promise that can't possibly be fulfilled. But he does what he's told, gathering tinder and kindling while Nasso hacks at fallen logs with his axe. It's dark, so dark. There is only the barest stubble of sunlight on the forest floor. And the world outside--the tents, the camps, the banners--feels like a false memory, like a ghost ship at sea. 

Finally Nasso calls to him that the time has come. Already the priest has made a ring of stones in the clearing; Loras doesn't know when he did it. Nasso uses his axe to chip away at the hard ground, and then to shift dirt out of the ring where the fire will be. Then he builds a lattice of branches. It looks like a funeral pyre. 

When Nasso is satisfied with his work, he turns to Loras with that mild half-smile, a lock of hair hanging in his eyes. “It is ready,” he says. Dirt and wood pulp cling to his hands, but he doesn’t brush it off. 

“And what should I do?” Loras asks. 

Nasso steps over and crouches by Renly’s body. Loras feels his muscles tighten, ready to spring into action to defend Renly if the priest touches him in a way that strikes Loras as dishonorable. But Nasso waits for Loras to move first. 

Loras blinks in disbelief. “We’re going to burn him?

“The funeral rites of my faith demand it,” says Nasso. 

“How are _funeral rites_ supposed to bring a man back to life?” 

Nasso looks at him like he’s a small child who’s just asked a very obvious question, and Loras wants to wipe the look off his face with the flat of his sword. “Well, you see,” he says, “things changed when the red star rose. I once studied with Thoros of Myr, and I rode with him when he and I rode with him when he and Lord Beric went to hunt the Mountain That Rides. Before we parted ways, over a slight difference of opinion on what the flames showed, I watched him burn Lord Beric on the pyre, and then I watched Lord Beric rise from that pyre, a bit scuffed up but _alive,_ very much alive. I saw this, and I had done these same rites myself, and I knew I could do the same if need be."

Loras eyes him warily. "You've seen it done, but you've never brought a man back to life before?"

A new glimmer of confidence lights Nasso's eyes. "I am certain. I have seen it in the flames." 

*

The body lies on the pyre, surrounded by a bird's nest of twigs. 

Nasso strikes a flint and the pyre goes up in flames as he chants in a strange language, a cry that seems to come from the earth itself, from mountains splitting and souls screaming out of the Seven Hells. _Stop,_ Loras wants to say. He wants to pull Renly's body from the flames, not caring if it burns him; he wants to put an end to this unholy madness, to slay the priest, to bury Renly so he can return to his revenge. If he has to kill every man on earth to avenge his king, he thinks, he'll do it. Because his king is dead. 

Dead. The man whose chest rises, whose arm jerks as though in sleep, is dead. 

It must be a trick of the flames, those movements. Smoke clouds the eyes. Heat makes figures blur and widen and twist. 

And groan.

"What is that?" Loras hisses. "What is making that sound?" 

"Your king," Nasso says, infernally calm.

"Then he's burning alive!" Loras shouts. "Put the fucking fire out!" But Nasso puts a hand on Loras's shoulder, and Loras curses the power the man has over him. Quelling his rage with some sorcery, no doubt.

And Nasso is right. Just as Loras feels the priest's hand, clammy even through Loras's shirt, the flames do something strange. They do not swarm and consume. His clothes burn away, his hair fries to a curling black crisp, but Renly's body seems to drink the fire like a hungry sponge. The flames ebb and ebb, flowing into the dead man until there is nothing left but a bed of burnt twigs and Renly atop them, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling.

His chest rising and falling.

"Renly!" Loras cries, staggering forward just as some force seems to pull him back. He must go to him, but something slows him down.

 _Fear_ , Loras thinks. For so long Loras had forgotten the name of fear. 

He looks at Nasso, and Nasso nods permission. 

Loras falls to his knees beside the pyre and reaches out a hand, slowly; a shaking hand. He places it on Renly's forehead. Renly's forehead is burning to the touch, but it is not the stiff waxy skin of the dead. Then Renly's eyelids flutter open.

"My king," Loras says, his heart pounding so loudly he thinks it must be audible.

"Burning," Renly says, a weak croak. "Am I in hell?" 

Loras shakes his head and a smile breaks out across his face like a crack in a gourd. "No, no. You're alive." He touches Renly's scalp, where most of the hair has burned off. "You're alive." 

*

Renly is weak and thirsty. He leans on Loras while Nasso holds a skin to his lips; he tries to squeeze it, but his fingers fumble, and it makes Loras wince to see those strong hands falter. 

"We must speak of the future," Nasso says as they settle on the ground. Loras covers Renly's nakedness with his cloak, wraps it around him gently as if swaddling an infant. Nearly bald and with sunken, wandering eyes, it is hard to believe this is the same man who stood so tall and magnificent just last night, who laughed and jested and demanded his foes bend the knee. 

"And what of the future?" Loras says. "Renly is the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms. He must continue on his course." 

Nasso's eyes drift over Renly. "His old course led to this. You must walk a different path."

Loras eyes Nasso with suspicion. "And what is that?"

"To win your kingdom, you must go north. Join with the one who calls himself king there. But the foes you fight will not be lions, or fish, or stags. You must go further north still. You must fight the winter."

"What does that mean?”

Nasso says nothing. And Loras is seized with fear. Of course this man would have some hidden agenda, to abandon the fate of the kingdoms to Stannis or the monster Joffrey. He'd trained with Thoros of Myr, a friend of Robert's, and he'd lived in King's Landing. Was he in league with Joffrey and the Lannisters? To use magic and the tale of a resurrected king and a prophecy would do away with two threats to the kingdom bloodlessly and with no loss to the Lannister forces. Lord Tywin could return south and vanquish Stannis easily if Robb Stark's men were swayed by this charlatan too.

“And what of the beast-woman who killed him? What of vengeance?”

“You cannot have your vengeance,” says Nasso. “Not yet. It was a false prophet of the Red God who killed him. The one who calls his brother king. You must let me handle her." "Out of gratitude for what you have done, I will spare your life," Loras declares sharply. "Go and dispatch the red woman. But you will leave us now. We will decide the fate of the kingdoms, not you."

To Loras's surprise, Nasso responds calmly.

He stands, and with a brief, shallow bow, he turns, takes his sack and axe, and leads his donkey away.

Loras looks at Renly, confusion flooding his head. "Are you..," 

"I wanted to be king," Renly says. His voice is still weak, and it sounds like half a question. "I don't know why I wanted to be king." 

"Because you deserve to be king," Loras urges. "Because the people believe in you. I believe in you. Does that matter?"

Renly's eyes drift up to his, but his gaze doesn't look like that of a man recognizing his beloved, or even his friend. 

"Do you remember me?" Loras asks, knowing how desperate he must sound.

Renly leans his head back against the tree. "Of course I remember you. Loras." But there is some hesitation in his voice, as if Renly is meeting a distant relation he knows he must have met at some point but neither remembers nor loves. And an icy cloud of despair forms in Loras's heart. _Is this how it's going to be?_ he thinks. _A man who barely knows himself, or the one who loves him?_ Loras holds his hands over his face and rubs his eyes, suddenly conscious of how exhausted he is. For two nights he didn't sleep; the first night because he had lain with Renly, claiming his skin with teeth and nails and riding his cock so hard they both panted like dogs in summer, and the second because he'd lain awake giddy with the thought of battle. Perhaps this is just a nightmare, he thinks.

When he opens his eyes he sees that Renly's eyes are closed. In a moment's panic he reaches out to feel his pulse, but beneath Renly's fire-hot skin his blood is pumping, as steady as ever. 

*

Night inks in the bright spaces between the branches and the temperature falls, and Renly sleeps on. Loras wants to sleep too, to get at least a moment's respite from this horror, but he can't; he must be sure that Renly keeps breathing, and that no one finds them here. 

He starts to wonder if Renly will sleep forever, and then he sees the flames.

They're far enough away that at first he wonders if he's imagining them, but then smoke hits his nostrils. _Who would be making camp in the woods at Storm's End, at a time like this?_ It's a small fire, and he hears no footsteps or voices, so the party must be small. Small enough that he could likely kill them all, if need be. 

A part of him thinks he should stay, protect Renly, but he doesn't want anyone to know Renly lives--it would be easier to go, to frighten them away and be done with it. So, checking Renly's pulse one last time, he stands and walks toward the fire.

He sees no one near the fire. There are no bedrolls, no food, and no horses, and it occurs to him that perhaps the fire was set to lure him there. He grips the hilt of his sword, crouches and surveys the glowing darkness. But he hears and sees no one.

 _Turn back,_ a small voice tells him. But when he pivots he nearly falls over with a fatigue more than exhaustion. It's as if something is poisoning his senses; his sight grows dim, his mouth fills up with a sickly-sweet, smoky taste, and his chest pulses as if there's a great snake writhing inside. A shadow seems to lunge at him and he draws his sword, but he isn't sure where his sword is, or his arm. Everything has a dozen shadows. His body itself feels like a shadow, weak and thin, stretching and sliding. He is amazed he can still stand.

"I am sorry, Ser Loras," a man's voice says. It wraps around his heart, threads through his brain. "The Lord of Light has demanded payment. Only death can pay for life."

And he understands. 

"Why?" he asks. He lunges at the source of the voice, but he knows he has hit nothing; he doesn't even know where the voice is coming from. A streak as tall as a man flashes before his eyes, but again it cloaks itself in shadow.

"I knew you would not give up your life, even for your beloved king. Not unless you were certain of R'hllor's power. So I let you see." 

Loras closes his eyes and grits his teeth, and strikes out with his sword again. And then the sword disappears from his hand, and he hears it fall to the forest floor with a thousand echoes, and every echo sounds like death. His hands are being bound behind his back, and he is shoved to his knees, and long moments pulse. 

And then there is silence, unearthly and chill. 

And then a cry, like a falcon tearing into flesh.

*

He’s being flung aside by rough hands. _Why couldn’t you kill me where I was?_ he thinks vaguely. _I was already dead. I am already dead._

And then he is left on the ground, and he hears voices. A man with blood bubbling in his throat, saying, _you have stolen from a god. You are damned. The darkness will take you._. And then the sound of steel hacking into flesh. 

And then a cry, weaker, _Magic always has its price. You will pay._

And another cry, and another wet noise, and then silence. 

He tries to roll over, but he's too weak. He becomes acquainted with each separate particle of dirt and twig and leaf pressing into his face, and he thinks, it's over, I've failed him, he's dead, and so am I. The light feet of nocturnal creatures skate over the ground. Out of the corner of his eye the last of the fire's glow fades into nothing. _I was Ser Loras Tyrell, a knight of the Faith, a son who loved his family, a man who loved his king. Gods forgive me for allowing this sorcery to run free in the world._

Something larger than a raccoon disturbs the earth, and he lies still and listens; he has no choice. 

Then there are fingers in his hair. He tries to jerk his head away, but a voice says, shhh. 

"What..." he utters weakly.

"You're alive." It's Renly's voice.

His heart pounds; this must be some new trick of the priest's. "Stay away from me, priest. Or kill me."

"The priest is dead.”

"What?" He struggles to turn toward the voice.

"I woke and saw that you were gone. I followed the fire." 

"And you weren't poisoned by his...you could see him? Through the shadows?"

"All I saw was him, and I cut his head off."

That god's infernal powers were inside Renly now, then. Loras's eyes fill with tears. It is not over, he thinks. It will never be over now.

"I wish I had not said yes," Loras says, and begins to sob. 

The hand in his hair urges him closer. He wants to turn away, but he is so tired, so defeated, that he buries his head in Renly's shoulder and lets the tears have their way with him. _This creature_ , he thinks. _It isn't Renly._

But he saved me. 

"Why did you save me?" he asks. 

"Because I knew I would have," Renly says. 

"Renly would have," says Loras. "You aren't Renly, though, are you? Do you remember anything? Do you remember why I wanted to bury you in that clearing?"

Renly is silent for a moment. "No," he admits. "But there are things I can see, even if I don't remember why they were important. I can see the camps. I can see my crown. They don't make me feel anything anymore, but I know I was a lord and called myself a king."

"And you know who I am, but I don't make you feel anything anymore either." 

Renly sighs, and Loras can hear him shift to sit up in the dirt, pulling Loras up with him. "When I slept, my dreams were mostly of you." 

"What sorts of dreams?" 

"Your face. And things I knew had happened, though they slipped away in an instant. But mostly just your face." 

Renly no longer wears the cloak, and Loras is suddenly aware that he's naked. He's touched this body so many times before, though Renly's skin was usually so cool and now it burns like a fever. His fingers skim Renly's shoulder and trace the hollow of his collarbone. 

"And you feel nothing when I touch you?" 

"I don't feel nothing," Renly says. "See for yourself." 

Renly's fingers, still weaker than they were, wrap around Loras's hand and place it over Renly's cock. He's half-hard, and by instinct Loras's hand begins to stroke. "You feel the pleasure any man feels when he's naked and being touched. Good to know you're not completely dead." 

"Loras..." Renly moans, frustrated. 

Loras is surprised, but his body is responding to the heat and the nearness too. Limbs still weak and awkward, he lurches forward and pushes Renly back into the dirt so he is lying on top of him. He fumbles with the laces on his own breeches and wriggles them down until they bunch at his hips.

Maybe he can pretend one last time, he thinks.

"So what are you?" Loras asks, grasping both their cocks in his numb fingers.. "What do you want, if you don't want anything?"

"I want to be who I was," Renly says, breath coming quicker as he bucks into the touch. "I know there were things I was meant to do. But I feel...I feel like I'm..." His words become choked off, and suddenly Loras is aware that Renly is crying. Loras lets go of their cocks and lets his head fall onto Renly's chest. His hand, still shaking, reaches up to cup Renly's cheek. 

"I was dead, I know," Renly says. "And I feel like I'm still dead. There's this fog inside me...and I know I should...but I can't..."

"Shhhh," Loras whispers, guilt catapulting him in the chest. Renly is suffering, and lost. And Loras feels like he knows just as little as Renly does of the world before. Now he knows that men can come back from the dead. 

_Men can,_ he thinks, bitterly, _but love can’t._

"Tell me about us," Renly says after the tears have ebbed. "You loved me?"

"You speak as if that's changed?" Loras laughs humorlessly. "I did. I...I do." 

"And when did you know?"

A difficult question, he thinks; the love came in layers, like strokes over strokes of translucent paint, each adding depth, contour, light. But he thinks he knows. 

"You remember De--back at Storm's End, your keep, when I was your squire, there was a stallion called Demon," Loras begins. "He was huge, beautiful, and I wanted to ride him so badly, but he was so badly behaved and everyone said I couldn't ride him until he was gelded. One day we were playing one of our games--you used to play a lot of games with me. You went and hid in the woods and gave me half an hour to find you. And I wanted to impress you so badly, I was twelve, young and stupid, and so I played a trick on the stableboy, got on Demon, and rode out into the woods.”

He is overcome again, and his throat closes up, but no tears fall. _Thirsty,_ he realizes all of a sudden. He tries to pull up saliva from the back of his throat, but it only makes him cough. Renly’s hand moves over his shoulderblades light as a spider.

When the coughing subsides at last, he starts again.

“It was fine until he saw a rabbit. He chased after it, and I tried to get him to slow down, but he didn't like that--he snorted and bucked and threw me off, and I landed on my arm. The upper part of my arm broke so badly they said I might never fight again. But you found me and carried me back to the keep, and then you stayed by my bed even when the maester told you to leave. You even slept by my bedside. You told me the most exciting stories. And you made me a crown out of leaves and flowers, declaring that I’d won the game in a most valiant manner, since I succeeded in drawing you out of hiding and risked life and limb to do it.” 

Renly sighs deeply, and he rests his hand on Loras’s back. “And you knew you loved me then? As...as men and women are supposed to love each other?” 

Loras nods. “All I could remember was how your hands felt in my hair, and once you kissed me on the forehead, when I was drowsy from milk of the poppy…and then later I wrote to my sister asking what one ought to do if one loves a person of high birth whom one can’t marry. She told me to declare myself to the lady’s service and ask for her favor when next I fought, if I was bold enough. So I asked for your favor when I sparred with Red Ronnet for practice. You were rather amused. I can’t believe I was ever so young and so silly.”

“A favor…I gave it to you, though. I must have given it to you.”

“You did.” Loras can’t suppress a smile. “A stag brooch with emerald eyes. It had belonged to your mother.” 

“And you won?”

“Of course.” 

“Will I ever tell you a story again?” Renly asks tiredly. “Where do we go, Loras?”

Loras has no answer. 

*

“So if I give up my claim, my brother and his sorceress will destroy us all?” Renly muses. “It’s either him or Joffrey.” 

“We could join with Robb Stark’s forces,” Loras says cautiously. Dawn is breaking, and it is hunger now that weighs down his limbs. “But they will want their half of the kingdom.” 

“Where are my forces now?” Renly asks. “Surely they do not wait for me to walk back out of the grave?” 

Loras is too weak to shake his head. But Renly’s words make him smile, because they sound like Renly. “They have dispersed. Some have gone over to Stannis.” 

“I could show myself before them…but perhaps it’s better we hide for awhile. We could hire men. We have the wealth, I am sure.”

“The Free Cities?” 

Loras thinks of the possibilities. Lying low in the Free Cities. Hiring a company of sellswords. Returning from exile after how long—months? Years? And returning to what? A kingdom ruled by a heartless man and a sorceress who could command shadows? 

The Free Cities also has assassins, Loras knows. Men who could change their faces and disappear at will…was this the only way to destroy them? Fighting one untameable darkness with another? _Magic always has a price,_ Nasso’s dying voice taunts. The thought makes bile rise in his throat. 

“It must be.” Renly helps him rise, grasping his arm gently and pulling him up, and Loras is astonished how his strength has returned to him. “When we are there we can decide what we will do. Unless…unless you won’t go with me.”

 _They’ll think I’m dead,_ he tells himself. _Mother, Father, Grandmother, my brothers, Margaery…_

“Of course I will go," Loras says.

*

Starving, nearly falling out of his saddle, he rides down the causeway to Storm’s End’s keep at a gallop. Only the coastal wind’s sharp lashes keeps him awake, though it doesn’t feed his hunger. 

_What will happen?_ he wonders. His heart says it’s right to disregard the priest’s behests to go north; they have a kingdom to win. But still doubt nags at him. _What if we are damned? What if we make the wrong choice, and it’s all for naught, and we die again?_ His mind barely catches that last _we_. 

For now he must focus on the immediate future. Storm’s End, and how best to prepare for their departure. He plans to play the companion deranged by grief, to take jewels and gold to bury with Renly, though not so much he casts suspicion on himself. And—Gods be thanked—the castellan will give him food and a change of clothes. 

And then they will ride for Dorne, Loras and this stranger he cannot abandon, with only each other for company. They will ride through the Marches and the deserts, sail out of Planky Town, cross the Narrow Sea. They will have hours upon hours to do nothing but talk to each other. Loras accepts that, for now, he will be the one telling the stories.


End file.
